Low self esteem can have a huge negative impact on all aspects of your life, but especially in the gym.
Unfortunately, it’s very common for people to feel self conscious and nervous in the gym. This is especially true if you’re a beginner.
Feeling self conscious and having anxiety while being in the gym is one of the easiest ways to kill your mood and kill your workout.
Trust me, I’ve been there. It’s nearly impossible to have a good workout when you aren’t feeling like your top self.
That’s why it’s so essential to start overcoming gym fear and self-consciousness.
In this post, I’m going to share five of the best self-confidence boosting gym tips to help you conquer the gym and all of your workouts.
In this post you’ll find:
The importance of empowering workouts
Before we get into how to boost your confidence in the gym, first it’s important to understand the impact of workouts that are empowering to you.
Empowering workouts are ones that make you feel healthy and strong.
Creating a workout routine for yourself that makes you feel strong and empowered is one of the first steps to transforming yourself in the gym.
As a result, it’s important to invest the time to find workouts that are enjoyable for you and support your goals in the gym.
The more you do these workouts that empower you, the more you’re self confidence will increase.
Not only that, but once you start noticing your progression and start seeing changes within yourself, the more you’ll feel more confident in yourself and your ability.
How gym confidence impacts your gym motivation
For most people, the better you feel in the gym, the better your workout is going to be.
Not only that, but the more you’ll want to be in the gym because you feel good there.
Think about it, if you feel good about yourself when you’re in the gym, it makes sense that you’d want to be in the gym more often.
As a result, the more your workout makes you feel strong and good about yourself, the more motivation you’re going to have to go to the gym. And have a killer workout while you’re there.
The more you’re in the gym, the more your self confidence increases.
Not only that, but the more time you spend in the gym, the more your confidence increases.
This is because you’re investing time into yourself and focusing on self improvement.
As a result, you’re confidence and motivation will only continue to build on each other.
Since the more confident you are in the gym, the more you’ll want to go to the gym, AND, the more you’re in the gym, the more confident you’ll be in yourself.
The best gym confidence tips to boost your confidence before your next workout
Enter the gym feeling confident in your workout plan
One of the best ways to reduce gym anxiety is to have a plan for your workout when you get to the gym.
It’s going to be essential for you to create a weightlifting routine for yourself. That is, if you always want to have a plan in the gym.
Having a plan and knowing what you’re going to do when you get there helps reduce gym anxiety immensely.
Mainly because it takes away the stress of having to come up with a plan right there on the spot.
This takes so much pressure off of you and allows you to feel more confident in what you need to be doing.
You’re routine for the day is already decided, so all you need to do is go in there and execute it. No additional thinking or planning involved.
Understand that it’s okay to take up space in the gym, even as a beginner
Many people in the gym, especially women and beginners, might often feel like they don’t belong. This is a big contributor of a lack of gym confidence.
You might feel self conscious using weights or taking up space. Or feel like you’re getting in the way and inconveniencing the people working out around you.
Most likely people who are bigger than you and have more experience.
However, although it’s a common thought, this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Everyone has a place in the gym
I don’t care who you are, how big or small you are, or what workouts you’re doing.
Everyone has a place in the gym and has the right to take up the same amount of space as everyone else.
Think about it, you’re all paying for the same membership, so why would someone else be allowed more space than you?
Let me put it into perspective for you. Think about the people in your gym who you think have more right to be there than you.
Most likely you thought of someone who looks like they have years of experience and progress on you.
But how do you think they got to that point? Because they started out exactly where everyone else starts out as a beginner.
It certainly wasn’t by stepping out of the way of everyone else in the gym.
But rather by being confident in themselves and where they are in their journey. And, putting themselves out there to get in the gym and get their work done.
Now, I’m not saying to be rude and take up unnecessary amounts of space in the gym.
What I’m really saying is that it’s important to acknowledge that no matter where anyone is in their journey, we all have the same right to be in the gym.
Recognize that it’s okay to not know everything (everyone’s still learning everyday)
One of the most common culprits of gym anxiety is the fear that you don’t know what you’re doing.
For example, maybe you feel like you’re going to do an exercise wrong or not know how to work a machine. And feeling like people are going to judge you for it.
This is completely understandable, more likely than not these things will happen to you.
There will be times when you mess up an exercise or use a machine wrong. So what do you do then? Nothing!
Besides keep trying and learning until you do the exercise right and know how to use that machine.
Because mistakes happen to everyone in the gym!
There’s absolutely no one in the gym who knows how to do every single exercise and work every single machine perfectly.
Even the biggest people in the gym who have been working out for YEARS are still learning in the gym.
That’s what working out is all about!
You’re body is constantly adapting to your routine and workouts. As a result, you have to keep finding ways to adapt with it.
This means trying new things and things that you don’t know how to do.
Who knows, the next exercises you try could be the one most optimal for your goals.
One of the biggest steps to increase confidence in the gym is to overcome a fear of failure and judgement.
Overcome any fear of judgement you might have
As I was saying before, having a fear of judgement is another HUGE reason why people experience gym anxiety.
As a result, overcoming a fear of judgement is going to be critical to gain gym confidence.
When you walk into the gym, it’s common to be self-conscious and imagine everyone is paying attention to you.
You become overly self conscious imagining everyone is analyzing you. Your workout, your outfit, every exercise you do, your workout form, and so on.
However, you’re most likely the only one paying attention to these things about yourself.
Most people are paying attention to themselves and themselves only!
Personally, when I’m in the gym, the person I’m paying attention to most is myself. I couldn’t tell you what exercises anyone else has done or how they’ve been doing them.
The only things I know are the workouts I’VE done and what I’ve been doing in the gym that day.
And I can tell you the same goes for almost everyone else in the gym with you.
Trust me, majority of people in the are focused on themselves and their own workout. Not you or your workout.
By the slim chance that they are more focused on you than their own workout, these people are in the gym for the wrong reasons.
Anyone who’s main focus is on judging others in the gym isn’t truly focused on improving themselves.
As a result, it shouldn’t matter what these people thing about you, since they’re in the gym for the purpose of being judgmental.
Whereas you and most other people are in the gym focused on self-improvement.
Realize that everybody’s fitness journey will look different
Another way to gain confidence in the gym is to become secure in your own journey.
Not everyone’s journey in the gym is going to be the same. Everyone has different workout goals, starting points, abilities, and body structures.
As a result, your routine won’t look the same as the person next to you and theirs won’t look the same as yours.
Try and keep this in mind if you find yourself feeling like your routine isn’t up to par with everyone else’s in the gym.
Maybe you’re feeling like you’re routine isn’t as advanced and much simpler than everyone else’s.
Remember to not compare the things that you’re doing to what others are doing in the gym.
This only leads you to feel down about yourself when in reality everyone’s at a different level. And everyone’s routine should look different.
Takeaways
Being stressed out and self-conscious in the gym is way too common. However, this is greatly detrimental to your gym experience and progress.
That’s why it’s essential to learn how to build your confidence in the gym and overcome any gym fear that you have.
Boosting your self-esteem and overcoming a fear of judgement are the first steps to boost your confidence in the gym.
Once you do that, you’ll have so much more motivation to begin your workout journey!
More posts on women’s weightlifting:
How to gain muscle and lose stubborn fat